The Wuhan coronavirus has hit America hard — and for a longer stretch than most expected. But while Joe Biden and his surrogates are frantically trying to blame it all on Donald Trump, a lot of very inconvenient truths indicate otherwise.
For starters, there’s the matter of China’s cover-up. Had the communist nation been honest about the coronavirus from the get-go, it would’ve given our nation a lot more time to prepare. All of January and early February were consumed by an impeachment trial, a distraction that, when combined with the cover-up, put the U.S. in a life-and-death position of playing catch-up.
Trump then initiated a travel ban to China and travel restrictions to Europe, and he was promptly blasted for racism and xenophobia. Chief among those shameless smear merchants was Joe Biden, who finally changed his tune in April. Despite the president’s best efforts to preserve a sense of calm, panic eventually ensued, and a 15-day “bend the curve” shutdown became a 45-day economy-killer. Some parts of the country are still shut down indefinitely.
Around May, some freedom-loving Americans began protesting the lockdowns, including the very harsh measures pushed by Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer — which included a prohibition on selling seeds. As we pointed out then, the lockdowns intended to slow the spread were themselves inflicting great damage, and they became the largest regulatory taking in American history.
Whitmer and her ilk, as well as the media and the Hollywood elite, decried the anti-lockdown protests … until the wrongful death in police custody of a career criminal named George Floyd, when they started singing a very different tune. Whitmer herself applied a double standard again more recently, staying mum about a Biden campaign event while denouncing a Trump rally.
Biden, of course, can’t draw flies to his events, while Trump invariably draws massive crowds. But Whitmer’s criticism was about the need to wear masks. Photos showed a number of attendees at Trump’s rally in North Carolina did wear masks. But that aside, does Whitmer really believe that the Wuhan coronavirus can tell whether it’s at a Trump event or Biden one? If so, that reflects either a complete ignorance of science or a conscious decision to play favorites.
If the former, someone needs to educate the governor. If the latter, it’s going to be harder to keep the virus from spreading unnecessarily until a vaccine becomes available. The reason is obvious: Whether it’s Whitmer cracking down on First Amendment rights, San Francisco opening gyms in municipal buildings while privately owned gyms are closed, or researchers dubiously claiming that the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally was a superspreader while Black Lives Matter protests aren’t, the American people can sniff out these double standards.
Sooner or later, there must be a full accounting for those double standards. In the meantime, however, the people’s justifiable distrust of government will serve as a down payment.
(Visit our comprehensive CV19 Pandemic response and recovery page to review our timeline of government and political actions related to the pandemic, and see our related pages regarding the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.)